Josiah’s Repentance

June 15, 2009

Today's Reading: 2 Kings 22-23 and Galatians 2

I have always admired Josiah, a goodly king in the Bible who I am surprised is not mentioned in more sermons. Generally, messages of repentance inconveniently leave this man out.

Usually, we hear the stories of those who don’t repent and have some really bad things happen to them. Generally, we usually don’t hear about it when someone gets it right. Josiah was one of those rare ones who did what the Lord asked, precisely when he was convicted of it.

It all started during some renovation of the Temple, when Hilkiah the priest discovers a book of the Law in the midst of things. When they read the book, they discover that they have been doing everything wrong.

And so the king decided to change the law so they wouldn’t have to listen to the old book. Oddly enough, the king actually did the right thing and decided to repent. In fact, it has to be one of the biggest repentance sessions that I have ever seen! Not only does he repent of his own sins, but he gets the entire nation involved.

Of course, he doesn’t “do good for goodness sake”. It takes a prophet to tell him that “if you don’t do this, there’s going to be disaster”. However, it wasn’t like there was any external motivation like someone holding a sword to his throat saying: “turn or burn”.

Indeed, most of Josiah’s motivation to change is internal. Not only that, he wasn’t one of those people that says that he or she will repent, and does nothing. He was active about it, and I believe that the entire nation of Israel was saved because of it. Don’t get me wrong, the nation was doomed, but repentance has a way of putting off the judgment of the Lord.

Still, how many people do you know that repent right away when you tell them they need to change? Usually they go through stages, like grief. It starts off with the denial stage, then the bargaining stage. If you’re lucky, your sinner will hit acceptance, but that is no guarantee that repentance will occur.

Imagine if we were all like Josiah, and we repented at the first time someone told us that we needed to change. Just think of all the preachers who would be happy, because all the people in their congregation wouldn’t be thinking about how soon they can get out for lunch. They will rush out of church and actually apply all these sermons they listen to.